The Lesson

[Written Especially for Children]

VEDA H. DE LANO

DOROTHY did not want to get up one morning. Outside, the sun was shining, and the birds were filling the air with their glad songs. The buds of a beautiful climbing rosebush were just opening to greet the coming day, and their fragrance came in through the open window.

Dorothy, however, did not notice these symbols of God's love. The evening before, while playing with her little friend Margaret, she had been selfish, and they had ended their playtime by being cross and unpleasent to each other.

Instead of declaring the truth right then, as she had been taught to do in the Christian Science Sunday School, she had gone to bed unhappy.

At last, very reluctantly, she dressed and, not even glancing at the Bible and her beautiful blue "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker Eddy, which were on her desk, she went downstairs.

Her mother greeted her with a cheerful smile. She noticed the unhappy little face, and declared to herself (Science and Health, p. 463), "A spiritual idea has not a single element of error, and this truth removes properly whatever is offensive."

After breakfast, Dorothy was restless and appeared to be unable to find anything to do. Her mother had taught her to work out her problems by learning more about God, through her study of the Lesson-Sermon in the Christian Science Quarterly. She usually read one section before going down to breakfast. This morning, however, she seemed not to remember this.

Her mother asked her to dust the furniture in the front room. Dorothy dusted each piece carefully, and finally came to a beautiful table. The top was polished so that it brought out the lovely grain of the wood. She looked at it for a while. This morning it was covered with dust, so that its beauty could not be seen.

She was thinking now about what she had learned through her study of Christian Science. She knew that selfish, unloving thoughts did not belong to her as God's child. Therefore, it was her divine right to accept only good and loving thoughts.

As she wiped the dust from the beautiful table, she thought, "Error doesn't belong to me any more than dust belongs to this table." She put away her duster, then ran to her mother and told her of her difficulty.

Her mother suggested that they study the Lesson together. She said, "I am sure, dear, we shall clear away every trace of this error that is trying so hard to make you believe it is something."

The subject of the Lesson-Sermon for the week was "Love." When they had finished reading it Dorothy looked up at her mother with a happy smile. Truth had indeed filled her heart with love. She saw now, very clearly, that the wrong thoughts she and Margaret had entertained did not belong to either one of them. As God's true ideas—which in reality they were—they could only reflect love to each other. She asked, "May I read the Golden Text, and then go and tell Margaret what I have learned?" Mother said, "Yes!" Just then Margaret came joyously into the house.

The Golden Text was from John: "We have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him." The girls memorized it and then both sang the beautiful hymn in the Christian Science Hymnal, which contains the two following stanzas:

"Our God is Love, and all His sons
His image bear, we know;
The heart with love to God inspired,
With love to man will glow.

"Teach us to love each other, Lord,
As we are loved by Thee;
None who are truly born of God
Can live in enmity."

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